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Seattle Hires Dave Baseggio, Adds To Scouting Department

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The Seattle Kraken have made a large addition to their scouting department, hiring Dave Baseggio as the team’s first director of pro scouting. Baseggio comes over from the Anaheim Ducks where he spent more than a decade holding different job titles. Kraken GM Ron Francis released a statement explaining why Baseggio is the right choice:

Dave played at Yale, he was an economics major and captained the hockey team as a senior. He played professionally beyond that. He’s been around the game a long time. He’s bright and a good person who will fit into the culture we are building with the Kraken. He will generate a lot of ideas and earn the respect of our pro scouting staff.

The team also hired Andrew Allen, Lorne Henning and William White as pro scouts, while extending the contracts of five other scouts—Cammi Granato, Ulf Samuelsson, Stu Barnes, Dave Hunter and John Goodwin—through the end of 2019-20 “with the intention” of re-signing them for the 2020-21 season as well.

The group will have to use video to scout players in the 24-team 2020 playoffs as they work to prepare for the expansion draft.

Pacific Notes: Kraken Coach, Lennstrom, Hall, Chayka

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With Seattle revealing their team name on Thursday, the next big decision they have will be who becomes their inaugural head coach.  According to TSN’s Darren Dreger on the latest Insider Trading, the Kraken aren’t close to making a choice on that front and will wait until the conclusion of the upcoming playoffs at a minimum before doing so.  That will allow them to get a sense for any other candidates that may become available depending on how things go.  In the meantime, they have several veterans that they can do their due diligence on.  Dreger singled out Gerard Gallant who would be a logical choice given how he performed in a similar situation with Vegas in their inaugural season.  He mentions that Gallant is in the mix but considering how early in the process they still are, he’s far from an early contender.

More from the Pacific Division:

  • Earlier this week, the Oilers loaned defenseman Theodor Lennstrom to Frolunda but there was no word on whether or not it would be a full-season loan of a short-term one. GM Ken Holland confirmed to Postmedia’s Jim Matheson that it is indeed the latter and that the Swedish team is aware that Edmonton will want the 25-year-old back when the 2020-21 season is set to get underway.  Lennstrom is likely AHL-bound to start the season to get acclimated to the smaller North American rinks but could be a recall option at some point.
  • The recent meeting between Coyotes CEO Xavier Gutierrez and pending UFA winger Taylor Hall raised some eyebrows considering GM John Chayka wasn’t present. However, Kent Somers and Richard Morin of The Arizona Republic note that a low-ball offer was tendered to Hall at the meeting, suggesting that Gutierrez is running point on any negotiations at this juncture.  That would be an odd approach to take given that the GM has had little trouble getting their core players to agree to long-term extensions throughout his tenure in Arizona.
  • Even odder is that there are questions as to whether or not Chayka will be a part of Arizona’s 52-person roster in the bubble, reports Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman (Twitter link). While it’s ultimately expected he will be, the fact that it’s uncertain plus him being taken out of talks with Hall for the time being is something to certainly keep an eye on.

32nd NHL Franchise Named Seattle Kraken

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Say hello to the Seattle Kraken. The new expansion franchise and 32nd NHL team has officially announced its name after months of anticipation. The team will go with a blue and teal color scheme as they prepare to join the league for the 2021-22 season. They will play at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, where a full reconstruction of the old KeyArena is taking place.

After the success of the Vegas Golden Knights, it quickly became apparent that the league would be looking for another strong ownership group to bring the 32nd franchise into play. When high-profile financial backers like David Bonderman and Jerry Bruckheimer partnered with sports executive Tod Leiweke, that group was an obvious choice. Seattle as a market had been explored in the past and when the arena work was started it was obvious that an NHL team would follow.

The Kraken are expected to join the Pacific Division for the 2021-22 season, with the Arizona Coyotes switching to the Central at that time. There is an obvious geographical rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks that will likely be pushed by the league, but it’s hard to know just how well Seattle will navigate the expansion process.

The Golden Knights were one of the greatest expansion stories in sports history, making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season. That’s thanks to the exceptional roster they built through savvy expansion draft maneuvers, something that may not be quite as easy for Seattle to accomplish.

Teams will have plenty of time to prepare their rosters for the draft—which will have the same rules, although Vegas will not take part—in order to not hand over the same kind of leverage to the Kraken. That said, with the flat salary cap there may be even more cash-strapped teams looking for help, something that Seattle GM Ron Francis could take advantage of.

According to Leiweke in today’s press conference, Seattle has already received over 10,000 season-ticket deposits and has more than 40,000 people on the waiting list.

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